Ugolino and His Sons

Ugolino and His Sons

A statue depicting Ugolino and his sons starving in prison.

This is the description from The MET: The subject of this intensely Romantic work is derived from canto XXXIII of Dante's Inferno, which describes how the Pisan traitor Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, his sons, and his grandsons were imprisoned in 1288 and died of starvation. Carpeaux's visionary statue, executed in 1865–67, reflects the artist's passionate reverence for Michelangelo, specifically for The Last Judgment (1536–41) in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, Rome, as well as his own painstaking concern with anatomical realism.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (French, Valenciennes 1827–1875 Courbevoie)

N/A

1865

Ashley Jais

Purchase, Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation Inc. Gift, Charles Ulrick and Josephine Bay Foundation Inc. Gift, and Fletcher Fund, 1967

Statue

French; N/A

Saint-Béat marble

Accession Number: 67.250

This gothic statue shows an visible representation of realism of the pain the Lord and his sons felt in prison. This relates to Hogg and how real he was about the G'Martin and Robert.

Sculpture

77 3/4 × 59 × 43 1/2 in., 4955 lb. (197.5 × 149.9 × 110.5 cm, 2247.6 kg);